may financial retrospective

In may, I spent a lot of money.  I only went slightly negative, but it's still unfortunate and regrettable. 

Why the heck is the blue 'household' pie-slice so huge above?  Timing, really.  May happened to have two vacations on subsequent weekends.  We went to Las Vegas one weekend, and had a fabulous time.  We ate some of the best food ever, had amazing cocktails, and saw a great show.  Unfortunately, those things are quite pricey.  Even though my in-laws let us share their timeshare and we drove instead of flew, having a good time in Vegas is still expensive.  And I didn't even gamble, beyond putting a single $20 bill into a slot machine.  And watching it disappear, of course. 

The weekend after that was a camping trip at an SCA event.  What can I say?  Apparently we enjoy dressing up in silly clothing, getting windburned, eating a lot of dust, and sleeping on the ground.  Anyway, when I go camping I tend to cook for people, so there was some non-negligible expense there.  Oh well, it's fun.

Both trips were known about ahead of time, and I was able to plan ahead enough that the expense didn't hurt too much.  No real problems here.  Some things are worth spending more on, especially when it comes to excellent experiences. 

Other than travel expenses, we're totally on track.  I made my full (but not overfull) debt payments, still have a comfortable cushion in my account, and didn't overspend on any categories other than that for vacations.  This month just means a little belt-tightening is in order for a while.

Onward to debt freedom!

wednesday love

Today I love this blog that I found through the blog equivalent of Wikipedia Effect the other day. 

From small tips on simplifying to dealing with a spouse's clutter without starting World War III to succinct guidelines on decluttering in general, Rachel of Small Notebook for a Simple Home is a fantastic resource on any decluttering journey.

She especially has a lot of fantastic advice on achieving a small, stylish, easy to deal with wardrobe, which is one of my overarching goals for myself.   I need to mount a major offensive on my overstuffed closet one of these days.  I own an incredible quantity of clothing but find that the same few pieces wind up in the laundry every week, while the rest just sits there.  What's the point of that? 

Wouldn't it be great if we only had to purchase, clean, maintain, and look at our very favorite things?

Ultimately, getting organized is not the goal.  Simplifying is not the goal.  The point of going to the effort to declutter and create more free space is just that, to create freedom.  The freedom for experiences and travel instead of stuff.  The freedom to move across the country if needed without having a panic attack about packing all your tchochkes.  The freedom to focus more on the important people and ideas in life. 

Also, I love my cast iron pan.  I got it at a yard sale, and the clueless yuppies who just wanted this chunk of metal gone after cleaning out their grandmother's attic sold it to me for $5.  Best $5 I've ever spent.  I've discovered through setting up camp kitchens that I can cook almost anything if I have my trusty cast iron, a teakettle, and my Le Creuset dutch oven.  It kind of makes that huge stack of frying pans that barely fits in the kitchen cabinet seem just a trifle superfluous...

belated march financial retrospective

I've been tragically derelict in my blog-writing duties of late.  So here is my much belated financial retrospective for March. 

In terms of expenses this month, the most notable things were tickets to two separate food festivals (and associated purchases), and quite a lot of money going toward a big camping event in Arizona.  Mr. Geek and I both play in the SCA, a group of silly history buffs who dress up in medieval clothes and hit each other with sticks.  March saw the second largest SCA event in the country, and so there are tickets, travel expenses, and gear for my camp kitchen on my spreadsheet.  Fun, but pricey.  But sometimes fun is worth it.  Frugality means not spending in some areas so that you have the ability to spend on the things you actually care about.  It's a good goal.

How am I doing on my mission to curtail food spending?  Not so hot.  March's 'grocery' entry is the largest of this year, but part of that was due to feeding several people out of my camp kitchen for a long weekend.  They did help offset the cost, though.  I fear that I must devise more active methods of reducing the grocery budget, for the simple 'try to spend less' approach seems to not be working. 

This month we see the glorious arrival of a fifth, purple pie slice in the chart, one marked 'savings,' thus indicating that for once I did not violate the master equation.  For my documentation purposes, 'savings' is defined as the difference between income and expenditures.  While this situation was largely established due to luck rather than discipline, I'll take what I can get.

In my mission to re-build my checking account cushion I failed miserably right up until the end of the month.  Despite my best efforts (and not overpaying on debts past my allotted snowball, no matter how much I wanted to), there I wound up, back at the same not terribly sizable balance.  Fortunatly, March has a bonus pay period in it.  Yes, it still means that the money from that paycheck must cover two weeks of groceries and fuel and the like, but it is effectively exempt from monthly expenses such as credit cards, car payments, and my membership in my commuting vanpool.  This left me with more money than expected at the very end of the month.  So while I can't attribute this month's success to any victory in personal planning and I didn't get to use my bonus paycheck for anything particularly interesting as suggested in the article linked at the beginning of this paragraph, I have technically succeeded at this month's mission to re-establish my cushion.  Huzzah!

things are looking up

I've been noticing recently that I tend to stare at the ground when walking.  It's a viable strategy when, say, navigating a river-rock path across boiling lava, but it seems a bit silly when walking down a nice and level office hallway.  It keeps me from seeing what's around me, messes with my posture, and I'm sure it contributes to an introverted, unapproachable demeanor.  So I have a new project: look up!

I applied this when going for my walk yesterday, in which I took the second half of lunch hour and took off along a random path.  I never really thought before about how fortunate I am that my workplace is kind of in the middle of nowhere, since it results in lots of dirt paths all over the place, mostly carved out by 4-wheelers.  Once I'd spent about 15 minutes walking and occasionally jogging, I took some time to really stretch (one of my favorite activities ever, as a dance nerd).  Being off by myself and surrounded only by plant life, I didn't have to worry about whether I looked silly or anything; scrub doesn't judge. 

Anyway, as I walked along I kept feeling my gaze pulled downward, and kept lifting it back up.  How much more pleasant it is to see the clear blue sky rather than the dirt at my feet!

resolutions

resolute, adj.: Admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering.

resolution, n.: A firm decision to do or not to do something.

Like everyone else on the planet, I've been thinking about this whole 'resolution' concept that goes along with buying a new calendar and remembering to increment the year when dating things (surely I'm not the only one who will keep accidentally writing 2011 until at least February, yes?).  The most traditional resolutions are things like getting in shape, eating better, spending less, losing weight, and being a better person.  While these things are certainly admirable and are helpful long-term notions, the thought of measuring one's ability to 'achieve' such vague goals come the next calendar-buying-season is less than appealing.  Besides, that sort of thing belongs on my 'long-term goals' page, not in a format that is intended to be achieved in only a year.

I really like the method that Erin over at unclutterer.com has used in the past, wherein she makes a new goal at the beginning of each month.  Rather than long-term lofty goals, these are achievable things, and the format allows focusing on only one thing at a time.  I would like to give this a try, and so this is officially my first resolution post.

My personal rules:

• Each goal musts be measurable and definite. 
• This blog gets to know how each one goes.
• Each goal should improve my finances, household organization, happiness, sanity, effectiveness, or health. 
• Failing is not the end of the world.  Progress is good.  

I've been remarkably lax in updating this medium, and so for January my goal is to write at least two blog posts on any topics every week.  Counting this one, that means I will have at least eight new posts for the month of January.  Here goes!